All posts tagged Concerts

What’s life on the road really like? Ask Meg MacRae, a production coordinator who has worked with Bon Jovi, the Eagles and Neil Young. Ms. MacRae works out of Nashville, Tenn., and Los Angeles. Here’s a look at a typical day for Ms. MacRae while on tour in November 2013 with Bon Jovi, in Philadelphia Read More »

The concert industry grossed a record $5.1 billion in North America last year, according to a new analysis from trade publication Pollstar, thanks to near-record prices and a huge number of shows by major acts.

There was a time when rock music fans could gather the ticket stubs of the shows they’d seen in a given year and immediately recall the experience. Not so these days: Did we see 50 bands at South by Southwest? An equal number or more at the overpopulated Coachella and Bonnaroo festivals? And what about at the CMJ Music Marathon or Electric Daisy Carnival? Mediocrity blurs together and memories of bands trying to get by on mimicry and attitude fade fast. Disappointments linger – Eric Clapton’s set at the O2 in London in February was as perfunctory as any I’d ever witnessed – but so does great music performed with fire and intelligence.

Here’s a short list of the best live shows I experienced in 2010. (Read the list after the jump.) Read More »

Technology has been creeping into concert venues for decades in the form of tape recorders and ever-shrinking cameras. That’s brought the familiar question of where souvenir gathering ends and copyright infringement begins. But now the debate is shifting. More than five years on from YouTube, many acts have ceded the battle for complete control over their performance images.

More and more, however, musicians are taking a stand over the way gadgetry is affecting the ritual of live music. Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes says that instead of lavishing attention on their phone screens, fans should be “sneaking around and smoking a joint. That should be your main concern.” And people who equate front row Wilco seats with superior camera angles are “just rude,” says singer Jeff Tweedy.

Low Anthem, an indie folk band from Rhode Island, may have found some middle ground. They’ve commandeered technology for their own artistic purposes. Read More »

In a boon for the National Parks Conservation Association, last night’s event in Central Park warded off the expected rain and thunder and attracted talent instead. The celebration, which honored documentarian Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS film, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” saw Gavin DeGraw, Alison Krauss, Carole King, Counting Crows and Peter Yarrow come out to perform and support the cause. Tom Kiernan, the president of NPCA, told us that the parks have another star to thank for his support: Barack Obama, who toured Yellowstone earlier this summer with the family. Speakeasy caught up with singer and songwriter Gavin DeGraw after he stepped off the “green carpet.”

The Wall Street Journal: We’re sure you’re deluged with requests for these types of functions. Why did you agree to perform at this one?

Gavin DeGraw: I’m a New Yorker, and I appreciate getting away from the mania like everyone else. Central Park is the only place where you can come kick off your shoes and get away. There’s something to be said for national parks and incredible landscapes.

Okay, so after you hang out in the park let’s say you throw a dinner party. Who are the top three people you’d invite? Dead or alive, and they can be fictional.

Smokey the Bear, General Patton and…Jesus. I think they’d get along well. Also I’d want to see if Smokey the Bear uses utensils. Read More »

During a February Senate subcommittee hearing on the proposed Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) aggressively questioned Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff over a recent episode involving the sale of Bruce Springsteen tickets. Central to Sen. Schumer’s—and hundreds of fans’—complaint: Ticketmaster had lowered normal fans’ chances of getting good seats for reasonable prices by redirecting them from Ticketmaster.com to the Web site of TicketsNow, a resale site owned by—you guessed it—Ticketmaster. There, seats for the May 21 and 23 shows at East Rutherford, N.J.’s Izod Center—known to geezers as the Meadowlands Arena and to not-quite-geezers as the Continental Airlines Arena—were listed for many times face value.

The attorney general of New Jersey sued Ticketmaster over the incident and reached a settlement with Ticketmaster over an incident involving th way Bruce Springsteen tickets were allotted. Schumer pressured Azoff to sell TicketsNow (which Ticketmaster is now trying to do) and is planning to introduce a bill that would regulate how soon after tickets go on sale scalpers can resell them. And Springsteen himself criticized Ticketmaster’s handling of the event in an outraged letter posted on his website.

Two weeks ago, actress and singer Patti LuPone grabbed a cell phone out of the hand of an audience member who was texting during a performance of her current play, "Shows for Days." The bold move led to an outpouring of support from fans fed up with glowing screens. Ms. LuPone gives us her five rules of theater etiquette.